University Press Releases

Santa Clara University Play on April 16 to Commemorate 32 Lives Lost in the 2007 Virginia Tech Shootings

Thursday, Apr. 5, 2012

SCU joins with other schools across the U.S. presenting an interactive suite of plays, held at daybreak on the fifth anniversary of the tragic day

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 5, 2012 — Dozens of members of the Santa Clara University community will participate in a daybreak tribute to those who lost their lives in the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings.

The group of 76 people—alumni, staff, faculty and students majoring in theatre, dance, and other disciplines—will stage a collection of plays entitled “What a Stranger May Know.”

The event will take place at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, April 16, on the fifth anniversary of the tragedy. It will be held outdoors on the St. Ignatius Lawn of the University at 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara University, CA 95053.

The suite of 32 plays, one for each victim, was written by Erik Ehn, an internationally known artist-activist and the director of playwriting at Brown University. He also taught playwriting at SCU.

SCU’s production will follow Ehn’s ambitious, plays-within-a-play format, said Kristin Kusanovich, senior lecturer in the Theatre and Dance Department and co-director of the Justice and the Arts Initiative at Santa Clara University, sponsor of the event. Kusanovich co-directed the performance with theatre and dance professor Michael Zampelli, S.J.

The student, alumni, and faculty actors will be scattered in different stations across the lawn, reading their 90-minute monologues simultaneously. Members of the audience are free to move about, wandering through the scenes as the stories unfold, or to stay with one drama throughout its entirety.

Other universities that will perform “What a Stranger May Know” on April 16 include Brown University, City College of New York, Brandeis University, University of Ulster, The New School, University of Texas at Arlington, Whittier College, University of Minnesota, Brooklyn College, and Whitman College.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see http://www.scu.edu.